Prostatitis--Nailing Down the Diagnosis

Be aware that if you have been diagnosed and are treated for prostatitis, your PSA may remain elevated for some time, and use of the PSA to screen for prostate cancer may be confounded, possibly leading to unnecesssary biopsies.

About a month ago my father, 70 years old, had a colonoscopy. The anesthesiologist used Propifal to put him to sleep. A few days after the procedure he experienced pain in his lower abdomen and had to go to the emergency room. The ER doctor stated that his bladder was not working properly and that his prostate was enlarged. There were no indications that the colonscopy caused any internal damage. Of course, at age 70 you would expect some enlargement, but this enlargement was abnormal. He was given something to help with the urine flow and a catitor was inserted into the bladder. He told to see a Urologist in 4 days. The Urologist examined him and said his bladder was not working properly and his prostate was enlarged. My father was given a self-catator and told to come back in two weeks. The Urologist felt that the prostate would shrink and his bladder should return to normal. A few days later things started to improve, the bladder appeared to be working fine and the prostated started to shrink. However, the original symptoms returned, pain in the lower abdomen and difficulty urinating. He went back to the Urologist and now he's suggesting surgery to remove the prostate. Has anyone heard of these types of complications after a colonoscopy?

In response to SDaniel's question about possible prostate/urinary complications after a colonoscopy, while I am not a doctor, I am a patient of same age as your father, was going through a diagnostics process for prostate problems at the same time as having a colonoscopy. I happened to come upon your question with prior context when doing some more homework for a blog ( http://prostatecancerthejourney.posterous.com ) to share my experience starting with prostate problems. I suspect you were not able to share your father's entire story. For example, what is is PSA, on the assumption that he had a recent PSA test? What is the history of his PSA readings over the last few years. Has he had any previous symptoms. There are a lot of unanswered before anyone can really answer your question conclusively. I would suspect that unless the doctor who conducted the colonoscopy botched the procedure, it may be purely ocincidental that your father developed some inflammation of the prostate at the same time. From my own experience, I had prostatitis and my PSA velocity indicated perhaps more serious problems. A biopsy revealed cancer and I had my prostate removed two weeks ago. Make sure your father steps his way through a systematic decision making process before jumping to conclusions. If you would like to discuss more, please feel free to email me with a phone number and I will be glad to discuss my experience further. By the way, I live in Colorado and I went to New York City for surgery by perhaps the best specialist in the country. See http://www.roboticoncology.com/da-vinci-robotic-prostatectomy/ . Good luck, PeterW.